Sudan says peace in south to help end war in west
KHARTOUM, May 28 (Reuters) – Sudan’s main negotiator, in talks to end a 21-year-old civil war in the south, says peace in the region would focus efforts on ending another war in the west of the African oil producer.
First Vice President Ali Osman Mohamed Taha was speaking at a rally late on Thursday attended by thousands of northern and southern Sudanese to mark his return from Kenya, where the Sudanese government and southern rebels signed deals including one on power sharing.
The agreements signed on Wednesday to end the conflict in the south also included a pact on managing disputed areas. Other agreements were reached in earlier rounds but have to be fleshed out into a final deal at fresh talks in June.
But those accords do not cover a conflict that has raged for more than a year in the western Darfur region of the oil- producing country and which has displaced about one million people.
“One of the first fruits of peace will be the extinguishing of the conflict in Darfur. What we have achieved will allow us to concentrate our effort to extinguish the conflict in the west of Sudan,” Taha told the ecstatic crowd, some dancing with joy.
“We will extinguish all the flames of war and division… And we will begin tomorrow to focus our efforts, to turn over the page of war in Darfur as the page of conflict and killing was turned over in the south,” he said.
The crowd was gathered on a ground often used for military parades and where troops had sometimes gathered before being despatched to fight in the south.
War in the south pitted mainly northern Arab Muslims against southern black animists and Christians. Issues such as religion, ethnicity and oil fanned the flames of the conflict, which erupted in 1983.
In the west, rebels took up arms in February 2003 to demand a fairer share of power and Sudan’s resources. They have accused of government of ethnic cleansing and supporting Arab militias to loot and burn African villages, charges Khartoum dismisses.
Thursday’s rally in Khartoum was attended by representatives of the People’s Defence Force, a government militia which fought in the south. Before Taha’s speech, people on the stage shouted the Muslim chant “God is great” and the Christian “Hallelujah”.